


I'll Hold You (Within My Arms)

by jvo_taiski



Series: WHAT YOU WERE AND WHAT THEY MADE YOU [2]
Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Book/Movie 2: Catching Fire, F/M, Loss, Loss of Identity, M/M, Prostitution, Victor Gale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-12-07
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:34:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 19,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27302017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jvo_taiski/pseuds/jvo_taiski
Summary: The expression on Gale’s face is dark. Brooding. Intense. He was raised to serve but born with fire singing in his blood and it’s going to destroy him, Finnick knows it.AKA the revolution’s started and neither of them know how they’re still holding on
Relationships: Annie Cresta/Finnick Odair, Gale Hawthorne/Finnick Odair
Series: WHAT YOU WERE AND WHAT THEY MADE YOU [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1921123
Comments: 27
Kudos: 38





	1. If the Sea Was Made of Blood

**Author's Note:**

> part 2 o_o
> 
> warnings:  
> canon-typical violence  
> themes of forced prostitution  
> PTSD/other unidentified mental health illnesses  
> sex scene (not explicit-- in chapter 2) 
> 
> enjoy

Finnick’s laughing so hard he’s crying and Gale’s staring at him, fascinated. He’s impressed. Never in his life has he seen such a low score for training and he wonders if Finnick’s set some sort of record.

There’s a big red **_2_ **displayed on screen, next to a picture of Finnick’s grinning face.

And by the look of it, the other tributes are even more shocked than he is. The whole room’s eyes are fixed incredulously on Finnick, who’s fallen off his seat in his mirth—he’s holding onto his ribs and he looks like he’s in danger of pissing himself. Against his will, Gale feels the corners of his own mouth quirk upwards as he watches Finnick laughing himself to the point of hysteria. But now’s not the time. Gale has his own reputation to uphold, after all, just for a little longer.

“What did you do?” he asks, on behalf of the rest of the room. Annie Cresta’s score is on screen now (a solid 6) but nobody’s paying attention anymore. She’s staring at Finnick curiously, her eyes focused for once, a sparkle in her eyes and a small smile gracing her lips.

Finnick wipes his eyes on the back of his hand, and manages to sit up. He’s got the hiccups. “Strip tease.”

Even Enobaria lets herself have a smile when the rest of the room erupts into laughs and cheers. Chaff shouts _encore_ , and Finnick jumps onto the table with a suggestive roll of his hips to general groans and catcalls, and Johanna joins him. Gale decides it’s time to leave.

Nobody pays much attention to the screen, as it flashes through the rest of the tributes. They’ll be able to watch it again in their own time anyway. Gale leaves Finnick twerking on the table and Effie screaming, and slips off somewhere quieter to wait, but not before Katniss’ score flashes across the TV. **_12_** _._

Gale knows what Katniss did, and he’s proud. Haymitch yelled at her, but he’s proud.

And maybe that means Haymitch cares more about her than Gale does, but he pushes the thought aside. Instead, he lets himself focus on Finnick for the moment, Finnick, whose eyes soften when he looks at Annie, whose smile can light up whole rooms, who’s still got the traces of a laugh dancing around his lips as he describes in vivid detail exactly how horrified the game makers were. And alone in his room, Gale can let himself laugh too—he could be dead in a few days, after all.

* * *

Their flat is dark when Gale gets home, the only light coming from the fish tank glowing in the corner. There’s something thrumming in his veins. It’s not quite anticipation, more like a gut feeling. An inkling.

“Finnick.” Gale eases the door of their bedroom open, letting a sliver of light fall onto Finnick’s sleeping face. He looks young when he sleeps, but then again, so do most people. There’s a little wrinkle from where he’s scrunching up his brow in his sleep and Gale wonders what he’s dreaming about—in some ways, Gale feels bad for disturbing him but there are some things should only be said under the cover of dark.

He opens his eyes wordlessly and just like that, the weary frown is back on his face. He looks like that a lot, these days, and Gale wonders if it’s partly his fault.

The door closes silently behind Gale, cutting off the thin strip of yellow light and leaving them in darkness, blue flashes from the traffic occasionally pulsing past the walls in strips. Finnick’s sitting up now and his voice is rough around the edges from sleep.

“Did you get it?”

Their voices sound strangely muted in the dark, hushed and muffled, every echo eaten up by the night.

Gale produces his camera and they sit together on Finnick’s bed, silently looking through the images. Some are blurred or half-shrouded in darkness but it’s enough. It’s all they need. Finnick reaches under the mattress, the long gold lines of his back thrown into dramatic planes of shadow.

He waits in silence and watches Finnick steadily print off every photo, before tucking it into a file. There are hasty scribbles in the margins of the album, in Finnick’s large, scrawling handwriting. Sometimes, Gale forgets that Finnick stopped going to school at 14.

_Party w/ Snow 18.09.56. Castilla Kaya, No. 26 98 th ave. Spinner’s Mansion. “He spoke mostly to Madame Heller’s lot (potential game makers), which I found strange because I thought he was there to make a deal with Hepbizah (assumed Hepbizah Sr, Jr not yet prominent figure)”. Suspected affair, but knowing Snow, probably not._

They’ve started writing down their secrets now, but only in the dark. After all these years, now they’re rearing their ugly heads, sniffing a hunt in the air, ready to pounce and come back to bite.

It’s all done the old-fashioned way, on pen and paper. Computers can be hacked; books cannot. Gale wordlessly pulls the chip out of the camera and scratches off the rough surface. It’s gone now. Helion Brittlegil laughed mockingly when Gale asked for a secret whispered in the dark but he was silent when Gale left.

He was still in ropes, bound to the headboard and legs slick with white, when Brittlegil leaned over him and chuckled, the low sound sending a shiver through Gale. His breath stank something putrid, and Gale had to remind himself to _tune it out, don’t think, just listen,_ when he whispered a half-secret that meant nothing in a Capitol bedroom but everything in Finnick’s childish scrawl.

“Stay here tonight,” whispers Finnick, once the file is safely back inside the mattress. It’s safe enough. Once they’ve realised that two capitol lapdogs aren’t under their belts any longer, they’ll be long gone, whether it’s dead, dying, or standing up to fight.

So Gale lets Finnick run calloused but gentle hands over the rope burn around his wrists and soothes him when his eyes darken in rage. Gale knows Finnick thinks he’s too young, that he shouldn’t have to do this, but at the end of the day, nobody _should._ Yet they still do.

They fall asleep together, tangled in a dark web, but there’s something beating between them. Fire. It’s growing in the dark and the smoke’s started to creep through door cracks. And the Capitol is still sleeping.

* * *

It’s weird, how little the training room has changed. Gale steps in and seems to disassociate, just like he did in his first games, as he looks at the racks of weapons and snares dotted around the room on blue gym mats, similar to the ones they had back in school but new, and expensive-looking.

But it’s different, this time. He knew what was coming, and this time, he’s not playing to win.

Her voice comes from his right. “So what do you think?” he looks down at Katniss, who’s surveying the room—and she’s not talking about weapons, either.

He shrugs, feigning nonchalance. “Haymitch says make some friends.”

“You’ve known them for longer. Who are you suggesting?”

“Finnick,” he watches her grimace out of the corner of his eyes. “We went to some events together. And we know he’s good at fighting. And obviously, Haymitch wants us to team up with Chaff and Seeder.”

He’s speaking quietly, in the voice he used to use sometimes, while walking through the woods. It’s low enough not to scare game, but clear enough that she can hear it.

“Split?”

“Back in 30.”

He raises a hand but it drops uselessly to his side and he gives the cuff of his sleeve a tug instead. She turns a little and gives him a look, but seems to catch on and walks away after a split-second’s hesitation. Gale’s hit with deja-vu—he’s only just realised that they’ve reverted back to their old code, their old spoken shorthand, which they used to use every time they went hunting. And she was probably anticipating his familiar touch on her shoulder.

Gale shakes his head clear and heads aimlessly to the wrestling station, where Johanna’s stripping down. He knows Katniss suspects what he’s been doing in the capitol now and he can’t help thinking that whatever happens, whether he dies or not, at least he’ll never have to smile for a capitol bastard again. She’s more careful around him now, at least, or maybe that’s just because she understands what the hell they’ve both been through; against his worst fears, he knows she understands what the Games can do to a person.

But they’re both here now and they both have the same mission—get her out alive. And it’s going to work. She’s mostly happy Peeta’s safe, and maybe it hurts a little, but he deserves it after pretty much ignoring her for the better part of 2 years. Even if it was for her own good. She says she’s trying to get him out alive, but they both know it’s bullshit—she’ll never kill him, sure, but if Gale dies? She’d be fine. 

And they both know that nobody else stands a chance against the two of them. It’s fitting, he thinks grudgingly—they’re back to what they were when they first met, any traces of companionship having long trickled through their fingers. They’re hunting partners, friends at a stretch, a well-oiled machine with arrows and snares and one goal between them.

“Coming into the ring, gorgeous?” Johanna grins as she leans on the other end of the wrestling ring and squeezes a well-oiled tit. Gale snorts.

“I think the fuck not.”

Enobaria steps up instead and her sharpened teeth make him feel sick, so he heads over to knife-throwing instead.

* * *

Effie almost looks sad as she fishes around in that stupid glass bowl for one of the three scraps of paper in the bowl. She’s struggling to hold it together, just like they all are—and for the first time, as he stares at those long, shiny gold nails clicking as they grasp for a slip of paper, a death sentence, he doesn’t feel disgust. Hell, he feels sorry for her, which is all kinds of dumb because it’s him, Katniss, Peeta, Haymitch, _Finnick and Annie,_ that could die here. She’s safe. To his knowledge, anyway. Haymitch has been deliberately vague about what information he gives out, and he knows Peeta and Katniss know next to nothing.

For all he knows, Effie’s part of it too, however unlikely it may be.

“Gale Hawthorne.”

Peeta tries to volunteer, of course he does, but Haymitch slams a hand over his mouth. _No volunteers allowed._ New rule in the games this year. Gale feels sorry for him, but he needs to live. So he doesn’t spare him another glance and walks up to the stage to stand next to Katniss, feeling like he’s in a dream.

Sure, he was expecting it, knew what to do if his name was called, but it doesn’t make it any less surreal. So as usual, he scowls and tries very hard not to feel. Haymitch isn’t drunk this year, but looks like he wishes he was—his jaw is set grimly. Meanwhile, Peeta’s finally stopped struggling and looks angry, even if he’s still reaching for Katniss. Gale knows he should make some moving speech like _I’ll protect her for you Peeta, so she’ll come back to you—_ but honestly, there’s a void where rational thought should be.

So instead, he stares straight into the crowd, _chin up, back straight, hold it together._ It’s a cloudy day, so it’s easy to stare straight ahead without squinting. To focus on the swinging sign on the bakery, the one orange-coloured brick on a wall.

His gaze keeps traitorously sliding to the right as he tunes out Effie’s speaking. _Rory._ He’s grown so much since last year—he’s nearing 6 feet now. When he grows up, he’ll be tall and strapping like Gale, like their father. In a lot of ways, he’s glad he’s in the arena again because after all, it’s another year that Rory’s safe. And if he fails? Well, then his whole family is pretty much as good as dead.

 _Don’t look at them._ Hell, the pull is magnetic. He wants so badly to stare at them, drink them in, while he can: they’re scared, sure, but living, breathing and alive. He can’t, though. The cameras are more important now and he knows that he’ll lose it completely and break down, fall off the hair he’s been toeing along for the past 2 years.

They think he’s going to die. They _know_ he’ll die to keep Katniss alive. Hopefully, they know he’ll die for them too.

But he can’t comfort them, let them know it’s okay, he has a plan, he loves them—they can’t know anything. It’s too dangerous. Maybe, if _(no, when)_ they come out of this alive, he’ll say sorry. Tell them everything.

So he drags his eyes to the left instead, scanning the crowd, until his gaze snags on a tall, familiar figure instead. Thom doesn’t look pitying, or scared—he stands, arms folded, grey gaze steady and focussed on Gale.

Gale takes a deep breath. In the end, it’s his old best friend’s sturdy gaze that keeps him upright.

* * *

He never knew Annie before the games and it might have been his second biggest regret, his worst regret being falling in love with her in the first place.

It all starts when she’s reaped. He doesn’t pay her much attention, apart from singling her out as one of the ones who’s as good as dead. She’s slightly above average height, very slim build. Wide eyes. She’s scared, but who wouldn’t be? Sure, she’s as tough as any other district kid with her sinewy muscle and calloused palms from hauling in catch but she’s nothing special.

He decides to come clean and rip the bandage off straight away. Maybe he’s full of shit but he doesn’t see a point in trying to teach her how to kill—he’ll try his best to show her to stay alive, but he doesn’t much feel like sending her in there with false promises. And the boy who’s reaped with her, Cody, he’s going to die as well.

So he opens his mouth, planning on telling her to enjoy her last fucking days on our good earth, but then she speaks to him first and things slowly start tilting out of place. She makes him laugh, a real genuine laugh, on the first day. Then, during dinner at some point, Finnick pauses pulling a fishbone out of his teeth and thinks _shit, I really want her to make it back._ By the time it’s a day before she goes into the arena, he realises that he’s stopped prepping her for her death and he’s started feeding her false hope.

She’s in there for two days before he starts praying she survives, which he thinks is a pretty valiant effort on his part. And she’s never had the best grip on reality in the first place but he can see the wild way she struggles and fights, the way she’s slipping before his eyes.

He tunes it out and the dam bursts and she’s alive and Finnick actually cries in relief. Then, when she falls to his arms, sobbing and shaking, unrecognising, he tells her _I’m here for you._ He doesn’t hold her hand during the ceremonies and she breaks down 16 times but that would have happened anyway. But he does wake her up during her nightmares and keep her hazel-eyed gaze _(her eyes are flecked with green in the light; he never noticed before)_ when she’s slipping, and he wishes he was there with her when she retreats into the safe place in her head.

During her victory tour, when she’s wearing flowing green and bronze satin, he realises that she’s really very pretty—then she starts crying and he gets distracted trying to get her to stop and fix her mascara. If anything, 6 months on, she’s worse than ever and Finnick can’t get her to recognise him sometimes and it hurts more than he wants to admit.

He tries not to take it personally. On her bad days, she hardly recognises her own mother, after all. The Capitol say she’s unhinged, completely mad, and Finnick gets angry but he doesn’t say anything even as a mantra of _it’s your fault, you did that to her,_ plays in his head on repeat.

But on her good days, she still makes him smile and at some point, Finnick realises that he doesn’t know what he’d do without her. He shakes the revelation aside and carries on staring at the way her eyes reflect the sea and makes the brown swirl with greens and blues and greys that lap over each other, tinged with gold.

Gale’s eyes look like the sea sometimes, too—but his are stormy and grey and dizzying, where Annie’s hold the secrets of the world. His are all questions; hers have all the answers. He gets lost in both.

It’s almost a year and a half after she wins the games that he realises. He’s just come back from the capitol and he’s sitting on the dock with Annie, watching the sun come up. The water is already turquoise, light and clear but reflecting the still-dim sky. It’s one of the slow sunrises, where everything is cold and clear grey for a very long time before the light all seems to appear at once—then suddenly, everything’s white and warm, even if the water’s so cold he can’t feel his feet.

He turns to look at her then, and everything hits him like tsunami in the face and if he weren’t sitting down, he would have fallen straight off the dock.

“Annie,” he says, trying to keep a tight grip on the rough wood beneath him. She tilts her head to the side, and the sunburnt skin on her nose catches the rising sun. He resists the urge to flick the little bit of peeling skin away. “Annie. I think I love you.”

He’s so scared of what this _means,_ because he’s known deep down for a while now, but if he knows, then the capitol knows and that means—

She bursts into laughter, loud and clear like a seagull on the wind and he imagines her flying away to that place in her head forever. “Bullshit.”

It’s crude, and it helps him back to his senses a bit. “I’m not bullshitting.”

“Prove it.”

He considers. Looks down at her toes, distorted under the little wavelets of the sea and looks at the little rope anklet he tied to her foot as a joke. “I don’t think I want to,” he says in a soft voice and Annie leans into him then, and runs her blunt nails down his forearm to settle over his knuckles. She’s cold, and her fingers are thin and pale and rough compared to his. She’s mad; she doesn’t have to keep them like the Capitol wants. She gets to keep her body but that’s only because they took her mind first.

It takes her a while to say _I love you_ back, and when she does, she’s smiling and Finnick all but floats with happiness. The regret comes later, but there’s nothing he can do when it does.

But she’s smiling now, and Finnick knows she’s trying so hard to hold it together. One last time. She knows she’s not going to make it, she’s accepted it—and maybe that’s brought her some clarity.

He hasn’t though (accepted it, that is—he probably never will), and he’s still telling himself she’s not going to die. Not if he can help it.

His heart clenches while he stares across the training room, sword in hand forgotten. He watches the slight smile that drags her mouth up on the left side, and he watches her slim, clever fingers overlapping with Gale’s as she helps him weave a net—he’s staring at the mess of rope in their hands, utterly baffled, and the sight actually brings a smile to Finnick’s lips.

It’s probably one of the last good moments that they’ll ever share so Finnick concentrates very hard on memorising every little detail. Their hands, Annie’s thin and calloused as usual, and pale because she could never get a tan however long she stayed in the sun—and Gale’s, large and blunt, long fingered, manicured by the capitol but strong and capable and dangerous. He’s examining the little knots in the net, fascinated, like he is when he reads tedious-looking books back at their flat. He’s not thinking of traps or war or death for once, and Annie’s smiling as she explains something, her fingers dancing over the rope—she’s content in the moment, without having to retreat into her head.

Then, she looks up and spots him and gestures to the net with a grin and Finnick lets a genuine smile grace his lips _(maybe he should start counting them; he hasn’t got many left)_ and wishes he could freeze them in that moment forever.

* * *

Everything in the capitol is bugged, or at least assumed to be. There are spaces without, or ‘dead zones’ or places that are too crowded for individual voices to be picked up, and that’s where Finnick is. He’s in a phone booth in a city square, having snuck out of the quarter-quell card-reading party (or whatever bullshit) he was supposed to be at.

It’s a Friday night and outside, the streets are packed as nightclubs and bars overflow onto the streets and the smell of alcohol does little to mask the fact that this particular phone booth seems to be used as a public toilet. It’s easy to see why the capitol wouldn’t bother with fixing audio equipment anywhere near it, or taping the phone.

“We’re not telling them. And that’s final,” comes Haymitch’s growling tones. “We’ve voted on it.”

“So we just have to hope they go along with it?”

“We’re working on some kind of token. Now come on Odair. Aren’t you meant to be at some event?”

Finnick ignores the jab. “It can wait.”

“’ _It can wait,’_ ” he mocks. “The bloody decision’s been made. Even Gale agrees that Katniss is a shit actress and the cameras will be trained on her the whole time. You know we can’t.”

“Peeta can keep his mouth shut. We need at least one of them to trust us completely if they both end up in the fucking arena. And if nobody involved gets reaped?”

“We know enough people to swing the reapings,” says Haymitch, grimly. “Trust me.”

“Okay but Peeta—”

“Finnick, _sweetheart_ ,” as usual, even though he knows it’s meant to belittle him, Finnick grits his teeth at Haymitch’s use of the word. He thought he’d made it to equal footing a long time ago, but apparently this particular opinion has led to a digression on where Finnick lies on Haymitch’s hierarchy. “The kid can keep his mouth shut, sure, but not to Katniss, he won’t. Get back to that event before someone realises you’re gone.”

“There’s something else. That Gale and I put together.”

Gale’s back at district 12 and has been since the card reading. He’s lucky. Finnick has to stay in the capitol for another week and the flat feels empty without Gale’s constant cynical commentary.

“The book? He mentioned it, yeah, and said you were going to burn it. Do it sooner rather than later.”

“I know.”

“Gale mentioned some… interesting things. Do you have all the details you need?”

“Yes, Haymitch,” he’s glad Haymitch can’t see him rolling his eyes through the phone. “I’ll do it tonight.”

There’s a pause. Finnick thinks he’s going to hang up, but there’s a mumbling on the other end of the phone, and he wonders if Gale’s there with him. He resists the urge to ask him to come onto the line, even if it’s just to hear his steady voice.

“And kid—”

“Yeah? Something else up? Gonna tell me not to die?” he keeps his tone light, but Finnick can hear the hesitance, and knows this wasn’t something Haymitch planned to say.

“Listen. We think these games were designed to break us, the victors. They know we’re the biggest threat to the capitol—”

He tries to keep his dread at bay. “No shit.”

“They’ll rig it to their advantage. That’s all I’m saying. We only have minor swing, so while we some influence on who does get picked…”

“You won’t be able to choose who doesn’t. Right.”

“Take care of yourself. Don’t die.”

And he’s left with a dial tone that makes his ears ring despite the noise outside the little phone booth. He’s stopped paying attention to the smell of piss a long time ago and doesn’t even look at the grime as he leans on the wall, cradling the phone to his ear. He’s there for so long that the single, long note clicks off and is replaced by an operator’s smooth, robotic tones.

Finnick makes his way out into the night in a daze. _The games are designed to target victors._ He’s been around for too long, and maybe the capitol’s worked out that he might have a bit too much influence. What would break him?

_Annie._

* * *

It’s hysterical, really. It’s as if his life could get anymore fucked, and then suddenly Annie Cresta is there but not really because she’s disappearing and he’s just realised he might love her (not like that) and she’s just realised (or maybe she’s known forever) that he loves Finnick.

She’s sitting on her bed, staring into the distance (Finnick’s off being photographed or something, or he’d spend the rest of his days with her) and Gale wants her to stay with him, stop drifting, so he asks her about home, about the sea, about Finnick.

The name seems to focus her eyes, brings her out of her shell. She even smiles and she takes one of his hands in her cold, clammy fingers. He doesn’t push her away—everything is gentle, with Annie, and he thinks maybe she holds his hand to anchor herself to the world.

And it’s sudden, that he feels the ache in him, because this is Finnick’s girl, his other half, this wisp of a girl holding onto the last bit of Finnick, and he thinks he understands something then, about himself, and about Finnick.

“Did you always know you loved Finnick?” he asks.

She laughs a little and it sounds like wind chimes, the sound clear even though the capitol walls in the training centre swallow noise. “No. I thought he was a capitol fuckboy at first.”

And it’s blunt and edged with mirth and it reminds Gale that there was an Annie before the games that probably sounded like that all the time.

“It took a while for me to realise I loved him, and even longer to believe he loved me back.”

She turns, with startling wide eyes, disarming as a sudden tide, and says in a voice so soft it sounds innocent, “You know, he loves you too, Gale.”

His heart clenches. “He’s my friend, yeah.” Soft words. Too much weight to dig apart with too little time.

“You love him too, don’t you?”

“Annie, I—” And it sounds choked, so she takes pity and squeezes his hand.

“It’s okay. He deserves to be loved.”

“Doesn’t everyone?” mumbles Gale, shutting his eyes and leaning back on the bed as she smiles again, one of her dreamy ones, and goes back to describing home, describing the sea, describing Finnick.

It’s nice, hearing her talk in her lilting tones, her voice as soothing as waves washing over sand. He never understood before, why Finnick loved her, what when he could have picked from everyone else in the world. But then he met her, and he suddenly knew why, and he’s reminded of it now, as he watches her hands draw wistful pictures in the air.

He thinks he’s fallen in love a little bit as well, but not like that. Never like that.

So he listens when she tells him about the fish market on Saturday mornings, when it stinks something awful but all the ice and fish scales scatter the light into a hundred little rainbows and about the time her mama took her out to sea when she was six and they saw a pod of dolphins swimming alongside, dancing, jumping, and Annie danced with them.

And then she listens when he tells her about the trees, the smell of pine, moss underfoot and how all the birds stopped when Katniss sang. Slowly, the room melts away, and just for a moment, the games don’t exist and they’re not about to go back into the arena in a week.

Finnick walks in, and he looks weary, but startles a little when he sees them together. Annie’s face lights up, radiant, like the sun coming out from behind a cloud, and Gale leaves them alone.

When Finnick drifts into his room the next morning, he looks fragile, and Gale’s not really surprised.

“She’s going to die,” he says, and his voice breaks at the end.

Gale frowns. “Not if I can help it.”

“What?”

“After Katniss. She’s my priority.”

“What? Why?” Finnick’s eyes widen, and it would have been comical if the situation wasn’t so bleak.

 _For you, Finnick,_ he thinks, letting himself feel a little sad. But he just grins at the way Finnick’s jaw has dropped even if he can’t tell exactly what he’s thinking, and says “Why not? Let’s fuck with the capitol a little. Confuse the shit out of them, set up a love triangle. Besides, I like Annie. She’s my friend.”

* * *

There’s one short, sharp scream—startled, fear clear and unfiltered. Then it’s over.

Gale barely casts a look over Finnick, who’s standing there too shocked to react, and then he’s moving, too quickly to think about it. There’s a _creature_ , and a hole in Annie’s throat and blood streaming down her pale, pale skin like little rivers.

And then he’s hacking at the creature, and he thinks he might be screaming, thinks the beast might be roaring, thinks there’s someone behind him sobbing but all he can hear is white noise. He reaches for Annie’s body, desperate, and the feeling of a claw tearing a gash in his flesh just brings the crescendo in his head even louder and he can’t feel anything—

There are strong arms pulling at him from behind, wrapping around his chest.

“Don’t,” someone sobs, and with a shock, he realises it’s Finnick. “Don’t. She’s gone. There’s nothing.”

Gale’s left with nothing but a bloody gash in his arm and the last image of the girl Finnick loves branded in his mind, waxy white in death, eyes wide and dissociated and finally forever in that quiet place inside her head.

* * *

“It was personal,” says Gale.

“What?” Finnick pauses, hands resting lightly on Gale’s bare back. “What do you mean?”

Gale twists, looks up and surveys Finnick. He sounds weary, but that’s nothing new. At least it’s not a bad day, it’s just dreary, with rain outside and a tattered banner whipping faded red slogans in the wind outside their window. Finnick’s sitting awkwardly cross-legged on Gale’s arse, massaging the knots out of his back.

It would have been weird, a while back, but neither of them cares very much anymore. It just is.

“Do you remember? When we first met?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, one of the first things you told me—when I asked why—you replied, ‘ _why do it to anyone? It’s nothing personal._ ’ And I’ve thought about it. It _was_ personal.”

“What do you mean?”

Gale rolls around so he’s lying on his back, with Finnick straddling his waist. His fingers curl around the edges of the pillowcase and it accents his biceps as he frowns at the ceiling. Finnick runs a casual hand down his torso, feeling its unnatural smoothness and Gale’s slight shiver. Absently wonders if without the capitol, he would have grown hair.

“District 12 wasn’t supposed to win, were they? It’s not what the capitol wants. But I did, and I didn’t break, and I didn’t step a toe out of line either. Technically, I complied with everything they told me to do, but it’s sticking a middle finger in the capitol’s face all the same, isn’t it? I still act like my own person. And that’s enough.”

Finnick thinks about it. And Gale’s kind of got a point.

It _was_ personal, because yes, even if Gale _technically_ did everything the capitol said, killed his way out of an arena, now sells himself out on a regular, he wasn’t supposed to. And maybe Finnick sees why Gale’s mask is so impenetrable, why he always looks so dangerous and why he finds it so hard to switch back to just _Gale_.

He keeps it locked away in himself, holds onto himself so tightly, determined not to show the capitol even a sliver of weakness they can use against him. And maybe it’s working, but too well—Finnick doesn’t think he quite knows who he is anymore, apart from weary and _angry_ all the time. And Finnick thinks he really needs to let go before he loses the bits of himself remaining.

* * *

It starts with a short, sharp scream and it’s enough to send Finnick running, Gale’s restraining hand sipping uselessly from his wrist.

Then the capitol gets creative with Annie Cresta’s screams and they’re drawn out, bloody, guttural, heart-wrenching and aching and soon it’s a crescendo of tortured cries and _Finnick,_ sounding terrible and broken and lost.

“She’s _dead,_ Finnick, she’s dead, she’s dead—” Gale finally manages to catch up with Finnick and tackle him to the ground, sending them both crashing into the foliage. He struggles and writhes beneath him, eyes wide and pupils only tiny pinpricks in terror.

“Annie! _Annie!”_

“She’s fucking _dead_ Finnick—” and that’s it, Gale’s losing it too, so he yells harshly, as much to ground himself as Finnick. “She’s fucking dead, that’s not her, it’s a jabberjay, she’s fucking _dead_ goddammit—”

And apparently that goes through his head well enough because he stops struggling, goes limp in Gale’s arms and just sobs, heaving, wracking, animalistic as Gale holds him tight and tries to drown everything out. He can’t even hear if they’re playing Vick or Rory or Posy’s screaming as well, can’t concentrate on anything except for the broken man in front of him, who he’s come to love despite everything, as he grieves the dead love of his life.

Something’s snapped inside Finnick for sure, and Gale wonders if he’ll ever go back or if Annie really did hold the last pieces of him stitched together like uneven patchwork.

He dimly wonders whether the capitol knows that this is the worst torture they could possibly give him, watching while Finnick finally falls apart.

* * *

Finnick remembers sitting in a fishing boat, when he was little. It’s one of his earliest memories—he can’t remember his dad, but he does remember his mama’s strong arms holding him up so he could see over the deck, chubby toddler hands clasping the wooden railing. He remembers sparkling seas and everything feeling _right_ , and remembers his mum telling him that one story about the mermaid and the giant squid while she waited for a fish to bite.

She told him he was beautiful, and he didn’t really know what it meant apart from it was good, and his mother smiled like the sun so everything was okay.

Annie smiles like the sun reflecting off the sea but it’s no less beautiful.

She’s doing it now, smiling.

They’ve just been swimming in the sea and he and Gale are washing the salt off around the back of the house. Gale’s just hit him in the face with a jet of freezing cold water and they’re grappling for the hose, shrieking like children.

“Ow! Fuck! You’re the prime example of an arse, you know that?” he gripes as Finnick manages to jab him in the ribs with his elbow.

Finnick wiggles his eyebrows suggestively. “You mean I _have_ the prime example of an arse?”

“No, you don’t. My arse is so much better than yours and you know it, Odair,” he grumbles, snatching the hose away again.

He’s right, of course, Gale does have a nice arse, but he says, “Bullshit,” anyway. “You’re fucking wrong.”

“No, I’m not.”

Finnick pouts. “ _ANNNIEEEE—”_ he hollers, in the general direction of the house.

She comes out, a crease of confusion between her eyebrows as she takes in the scene but smiling all the same. Gale blushes a violent red and tries to cover up but Finnick slaps his hands out of the way impatiently. “No, no, no. We’re settling this. Annie. Who’s got the best arse?”

He poses ridiculously, arm thrown over his brow and arse sticking out and Gale groans and buries his face in his hands and Annie laughs so hard she cries, louder and freer than he’s heard in so long. It makes his heart swell like a helium balloon and float right out of his chest.

* * *

Gale thinks he might be shaking, can’t tell really. Doesn’t care. He thinks he’s crying too, but he doesn’t know, can’t feel anything apart from spiralling desperation and anger and pain and _okay_ he’s definitely crying because he can feel hot tears streaming down his cheeks like something molten.

His arm still hurts, stitched up the good old-fashioned way by a District 13 doctor with thin lips and stingy amounts of thread, and with satisfaction, Gale realises it’s going to scar. It throbs and stings now, a fresh reminder of long claws and a short, sharp scream and Annie’s blood running down the hollow of her throat.

 _He’s lost the will to live._ Gale’s almost hesitant to cradle the figure in front of him, still as an ice statue and eyes glazed and drugged—his hands skitter over Finnick’s form instead, scared he’ll be cold to the touch or just disintegrate.

“No, no, no—goddammit, fuck you Finnick,” he breathes, feeling what’s left of his control slowly start unravelling. _He’s lost the will to live,_ said the doctors, and now Gale’s left curling over someone who’s as pale as Annie in death, drained under the lights in District 13.

“Can’t you do it for me?”

There’s no response. Gale doesn’t even know if he can hear him. “I’m going to be fucking selfish here, okay? I’ve got nobody left, not my family, not anybody. I can’t lose you. Not you too.”

And it comes out cracked and broken, a final huff of air before he gives in and curses and slams his fist down onto the bed and _still gets no fucking reaction_ because _not you too._ It’s a final plea, something he’s dropped his pride to beg for, dropped his whole self. He crumbles there by the side of his hospital bed and takes a cold hand in one of his own and rests his forehead in the other.

He stays until the doctor comes to kick him out, and he’s not proud of what he does next, but he’s not expecting the stranger’s hands shaking him roughly. It makes something ugly in him coil and spring and he’s sent the doctor sprawling before he can think about what he’s doing, doesn’t register the ugly, ugly words spilling from his mouth.

“You know what? Fuck you, fuck you, Finnick. You let them take everything—you were right, you’re nothing without her. Go ahead and die, it will probably be kinder.”

And then he’s gone, storming out, swearing to himself not to look back. He’s got work to do. A revolution to complete.

* * *

The day starts normal—it’s one of the good ones, where neither of them have anything better to do other than languish in their stupid capitol flat and wind each other up. Gale (the heathen) wakes up at an ungodly hour, as usual, and drags Finnick out of bed and somehow forces him to go with him on a run because he’s annoying and pushy that way.

But he’s right, and it is a nice day. It’s early enough for the air to be crisp and for the streets to be silent. Finnick enjoys the warm burn in his calves and the sharp tang in his throat and the way his shirt sticks to his back with sweat—it all feels very real and he feels alive.

They’re mostly silent as they take a route that weaves through capitol streets and parks. Gale hates everything capitol, but he’s said that the city fascinates him. He prefers the back alleys that they don’t show on TV, where the smooth paving stones are gum-spotted and narrow and the colours aren’t so lurid and saturated. He does complain about the shitty architecture though—he hates the trimmings, preferring something clean-cut and bold.

Finnick’s head is clearer than it’s been since he last visited the sea, and he’s also wheezing and his legs are burning. Gale laughs at him and calls him an old man (he’s barely even breathing heavy, the prick) so Finnick stops nursing the cramp in his calf to smack him over the head with his sweaty T-shirt.

“Shut up kid. If it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t be able to swim—you can barely make it 50m in one go. Prick.”

Gale just shrugs and grins. He’s unfairly good at running—he’s used to it. He says it’s something he’s always done because his stamina was always good anyway, and once he started hunting regularly, he had enough energy to make it on a morning run. He also said that he was lucky he never had to work in the mines, because that’s always tiring enough that most men don’t have the energy to do anything other than sleep when they come home from 11-hour shifts.

“Hey, Finnick!”

Finnick stops stretching out his calves when Gale’s voice drifts in from the next room. He wanders off to see what the hell he wants—the shower’s on; he thought the kid was in the bathroom.

But he’s standing in the corner of the living room, flushed from their run, broad back damp with sweat. He’s only in a towel, which is slung low across his waist—definitely about to get into the shower, then—and he’s staring entranced at the fish tank in the corner.

It’s stupid really, something that Finnick bought on a whim, and apparently, it’s just been delivered while they were out. But Gale looks absolutely delighted. There’s unhindered boyish excitement painted all over his features.

Chances are, he’s never actually seen a fish tank in real life. Gale’s hand drifts upwards, skims the glass, eyes fixed on the changing colours and bubbles and the little fish with their big, fanning tails and glittering scales. Finnick would have been happy just to stare at him forever, watch the curve of his lips open slightly, and his dark eyelashes framing wide eyes and the sweat making his hair stick to the back of his neck.

Gale looks up then, deadpans, “The green one’s called Paprika.”

Finnick blinks. A grin slowly spreads on his face as he wracks his brain for another ridiculous capitol name. “Fine. Deal. The orange one’s Clavicle.”

It’s stupid, but they both crack up.

Finnick’s at loathe to stop staring at Gale, who’s still gazing at Paprika and Clavicle going around and around, but hey, the shower’s running. And, well.

He sneaks into the bathroom and hops into the shower first. It takes Gale a solid 5 minutes to realise what he’s done and start cursing—Finnick laughs.

“You arse! Get out of there, that’s my shower you ugly little man!”

It makes Finnick laugh even harder but when he finally gets out, Gale’s gone back to the corner with the fish. It’s beautiful, _he’s_ beautiful like this, brimming full of a childhood wonder at something so stupid like a fish tank, something that doesn’t need to mean anything other than looking pretty.

Finnick holds onto that memory when it washes through his mind, dimly wonders what the hell happened to Paprika and Clavicle. He still hasn’t moved from the bed they’ve put him in and he doesn’t think he wants to, doesn’t think he can face people and colours and the rest of the world so he drifts, shuts down. He doesn’t know where he is, doesn’t particularly care.

They’re dead, probably. Paprika and Clavicle. Their fish. Definitely. Dead, just like Annie.


	2. Deluge

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i fucking LIED there's another part after this B)   
> tbh it's only because i ended up with 10,000+ words for the second chapter and that pissed me off so i split it up where it made sense.   
> the last part with definitely be out before christmas tho, probably next week so you all won't have to wait that long lmao 
> 
> warning for sex but not explicit, and the usual dark themes as mentioned at the start somewhere.

He wonders how it would have panned out.

His mother, cleaning up Haymitch’s place as usual, more out of habit than anything really. People stopped giving her clothes to clean after Gale came back _different._ Best not to get involved. Maybe his siblings—would they have been at school?

Gale doesn’t know, doesn’t want to ask.

Maybe they would have run back to their old house, the little shack on the outskirts of the Seam. Because they can’t have been in the house by the victor’s village, _the victor’s village wasn’t touched goddammit, why weren’t they there—?_

He wonders if there was screaming in the District, whether they started trying to escape the second Katniss fired that arrow at the arena or whether their only warning was the first bombs falling. Did they try get out? Maybe Thom, or Prim would have run to their house and told them to get the hell out, maybe they tried and got lost somewhere on the way, eaten by the screaming crowds or the flames and smoke.

Prim was the one who came and told him once he’d been fished out of the arena, half-alive—she was the one who draped her skinny body over his and cried his tears, while he just lay there, too numb to feel anything. Nothing at all.

She was never afraid of him, Prim. Not of his glares, not of his taciturn behaviour. Hell, she was best friends with Rory, practically part of the family—of course she would have run to them when it happened—

The first bombs dropping, a blazing inferno on Gale’s house. He knows it’ll be little more than dust by now, wonders if there are little bodies under it all, pictures his mother rushing into their house to save her youngest children—a blazing inferno, burned and charred and _pain_ and then nothing, nothing but flames and ashes.

He feels a stab of hurt in his gut so strong he almost doubles over, so strong he can’t feel hate anymore. So he stops thinking, turns back to what he’s working on with more focus than before.

It’s a snare. But it’s not for catching rabbits, or even children. It’s a huge, flaming thing, something that looks like a blessing on the outside but that’s filled with death and fire and pain and everything inside Gale, everything that took his family and home from him.

Katniss frowns when she sees it.

Gale shrugs. Flicks the blueprint to the next page. “It’s no different to what we do in the woods,” he says.

She gives him a _look,_ like he’s a monster. Oh well. Maybe he is.

* * *

Madge Undersee is standing right in front of him, blonde hair done up primly and grey clothes actually flattering her, unlike everyone else in the damned place. But she does have that aura around her, just like everyone else, the one that’s sad and solemn and a thousand years old.

He bites the inside of his cheek, not quite knowing what to say. Back in the day, over two years ago, in a different world, she used to be his girlfriend—until he grew up and started resenting her for having it better. It was a childhood thing, innocent, didn’t really mean that much.

But she still fits perfectly under his chin, just like he remembers, even though they’ve both grown since then. He remembers kissing her by the slag heaps, remembers the rare times she smiled (she’s a bit like Katniss, in that way), and how he’d sold her strawberries for years.

It was her father who saved as much of District 12 as possible before the bombs dropped. Prim told him as much, anyway. Apparently, the mayor saw what happened on the screens, with Katniss and the arrow and the arena collapsing, and committed treason in a split second. Gale never thought he’d have an ounce of respect for Mayor Undersee _(privileged, capitol)_ but he must have known that he wouldn’t be spared. Because in the end, they were all District 12.

He didn’t make it, but he saved his only daughter’s life. 

Barely 1000 people survived, and it was Prim of all people who guided them through the woods, knowing the way from the rare times that Katniss took her out to forage for plants, until the hovercraft from District 13 came to pick them up.

It’s surreal seeing Madge here, without a family, just like Gale. She feels wrong in his arms, alien. It’s worse when she looks up and says, “I’m sorry.”

Because what’s there to be sorry for, anymore? Her family is dead, his family is dead, nothing is right. And her arms are around his waist and _fuck,_ it’s wrong, everything is wrong.

He manages to choke out, “It’s not your fault,” which is stupid, because of course it isn’t—it’s Gale’s fault his family’s gone, that District 12 is gone, and then he’s pushing her away, gently, and maybe his hands are shaking a little when he turns and walks away.

To his credit, he makes it all the way to the room he’s been assigned before he sinks to the floor, vaguely registering that he’s trembling. He shouldn’t be. There are things swimming in front of his eyes, shimmering like scales, making the world hazy and it takes them spilling over before he realises, with a start, that they’re tears.

He doesn’t know how long he’s there, just sitting. There are no windows, no sun or sky to give him a sense of time, and he feels like he’s suffocating so he shuts his eyes again and _deep breaths, Gale. Get yourself together._ Time passes and maybe it’s half an hour or four, but he can’t anymore, can’t feel, can’t think—

A ghost walks into his room.

It’s pale and thin, white gown hanging off its bones like a shroud, a heavy bracelet on its wrist _(mentally disoriented)_ and it has tight lines and bruise-like bags around its eyes. It’s holding a frayed length of rope and it moves fluidly in its fingers, transforming into a simple bowline knot again and again.

Annie taught Gale that knot. It looks like a noose.

He stands up, like he’s in a dream, and reaches out for the ghost—his fingertips skim a warm cheek. It’s not a ghost.

Finnick smiles, hesitantly, scared, almost. It looks more like a grimace. His fingers don’t stop moving.

And suddenly, Gale’s fucking mad.

“You died. You were dying.” And he pulls his hand away from his cheek like he’s been burned, and doesn’t even flinch when Finnick’s eyes widen in fear.

“Get out,” he snaps. “Get out, get out, get the _hell_ out—”

And he’s mad, so angry, shaking—he _left_ him for fuck’s sake, the doctors said—Gale just manages to shove him through and slam the door shut before he’s done, finally snapped, sinking back to the floor and letting huge, heaving sobs wrack his body, the kind that take up so much he can’t breathe, and he doesn’t know if it’s relief _(he’s alive)_ or hate or resentment or just so much _pain_ —hell, all he knows is that there’s too much of all of it and it hurts and everything’s blending into one.

He thinks he falls asleep on the floor. Doesn’t remember when he stopped crying. 

* * *

Of all the directions he expected his life to go in, he never could have anticipated _Gale,_ and his ruthless mind and clever hands.

Sure, he never thought about the future much. It’s hard when nothing’s permanent except the capitol and nothing’s his own, except his mind. But now Gale’s here and he’s shifted something out of alignment, rearranged the stars and moons in Finnick’s galaxy and he doesn’t really know what to do with it apart from it _fits._ Somehow.

He remembers the days before the Quarter Quell like a dream, all the pieces drifting in his mind and if he focusses enough they become clear enough to be a memory.

He’s off being photographed somewhere—yes, that’s it, that’s why he was out. When he gets back to the training centre he goes straight for Annie’s room, and to his surprise, she’s not alone.

She’s sitting up on her bed, legs swinging from the side, a sparkle in her eyes for once, so unlike the dull gaze she gets sometimes. And Gale’s lying next to her, long legs draped over the edge while he stares at the ceiling—he’s got an open look of wonder on his face, all young and boyish and unclouded by any other thoughts. It’s unhindered, almost like the way he’d stare at their fish tank or the way he looked the first time he saw the sea up close.

When he sees him, it leaves his face and he’s just weary again, probably echoing the expression on Finnick’s own face. He manages a sad smile before he leaves and touches Finnick’s elbow, and he’s gone before Finnick’s vocal chords start working and he can say _stay._

“We were talking about you,” says Annie, her voice guiding his gaze away from the closed door and back to her earnest face. She looks calculating.

“Oh?” he crawls onto the bed with her and takes her hand in his and it’s clammy as usual but warm for once. Gale’s warmed it up.

“Yeah,” she leans down with a small smile and touches her nose to his—a silly, sweet gesture that makes something in him ache a little. Her hair tickles his neck. “We talked about you, and we talked about home.”

“You’d better have said good things,” jokes Finnick, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. It’s choppy. She’d cut it herself before coming, and it’s not so long anymore.

“The best.” She smiles, looks down. Something crosses her face, like she’s calculating, but when she meets his eyes again she’s got something unreadable and gentle in her eyes. “I think he loves you.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah,” she leans back next to him and sighs when he brings his arm up to automatically circle her waist. “He doesn’t act like it but he’s still a kid, Finnick. We all are.”

They lie in silence for a while, just Finnick and Annie like it should always be, but everything seems heavier and hollower at the same time.

“Protect him, Finnick.” When she sits up again, it’s startling. Her eyes are barely inches from his and he tracks the colours all melting together like a kaleidoscope, mostly hazel from a distance but brown, rich and warm, light green like the sea, specks of grey and blue all dancing together up close. She sounds determined suddenly, her gaze dizzying and terrifying and intense all at once. “Protect him, Finnick. I know he’ll take care of you for me, and I need you to protect him too.”

“What do you mean?”

She hesitates, taking the weight of her gaze off him for just a second. “Get him out of there, okay?”

And he knows she’s not talking about the arena, not primarily. There’s that, but there’s also the fact that Annie went into an arena once, never came out. Not completely. Gale and Finnick were lucky the first time. They made it, more or less. But again?

“Get him out of there okay? Get each other out.”

“Yeah,” he says, and it comes out a dry whisper. “Yeah, I will.”

He doesn’t bother add _and you. I’ll get you out too._ She’s accepted she’s going to die, even if Finnick hasn’t—because in the end, she’s not a priority to either side. Just collateral. Only useful in what she means to Finnick and Finnick is sorry about that every day.

He also doesn’t bother with any of the _it’s the Hunger Games, only one person survives,_ because that’s bullshit and she’s not an idiot; she knows something’s happening. Sure, he hasn’t told her anything for her own protection but she suspects something, knows _him._ She doesn’t want to be told anything, because then if something does happen, they’ll kill her quickly.

The thought makes bile rise in his throat and he reaches out to grab her face, kiss her desperately, hold her to him, because the thought is too intolerable—hell, he doesn’t know what he’d do without her. Die, probably.

Still, he’s thrown when she says, “Make love to me, Finnick. One last time.”

He pauses, takes in her bittersweet gaze with wide eyes. Runs a tentative hand down the side of her face, mapping the freckles on her cheek, over the corner of the lips he knows so well. They’re tight around the edges and her eyes are heavy and creased and she looks too old for this, too old for everything and it’s not right because they’re both too young.

He kisses the corner of that mouth and watches a little bit of tension drift away while her eyes flutter shut. However long he’s loved her, he can still count all the times they’ve ever had sex on his fingers. Come to think about it, it’s a little odd, but it doesn’t matter. Never has. He’s away too often and when they are together, alone, in those beautiful moments they can snatch together, they don’t need to have sex.

Finnick’s happy just to have her, even if she’s just staring into the distance, towards the horizon—it’s alright. She’s there. He’s okay just to be with her, and she’s okay just to feel safe with him, and that’s all that matters. But when they do, it feels like the world’s all stripped away and it’s nothing but them entwined together. It’s magical.

“Annie,” he breathes, and it’s like a last prayer, broken and whole at the same time. “Annie.”

And then he’s on her, kissing her desperately, like she’ll fade away in his hands if he doesn’t hold onto her, touch every bit of skin again and again and brand it in his memory. She has the most beautiful expressions when he’s in her and he has to pause a moment, take in every inch of _Annie_ , all sinewy muscle, an expanse of smooth skin that dips under her ribs and arches into the slope of her breasts—and, fuck, he wants to look at the way her neck curves when she throws her head back with nothing but bliss written over her features for the rest of his days. He’d happily die in the moment, knowing he’d brought that to her.

It’s a while before the afterglow fades and Annie’s long since gone to sleep. She’s curled up on his chest and he can feel her breathing right over his heart. Warm air, in and out, just out of sync with it beating. He can’t sleep—there’s something foreign and uneasy skittering just under the surface of his skin, not quite settling.

When he swallows, his throat is dry and it feels like there’s a lump in it.

And suddenly, he’s feeling it—finally feeling what Gale feels every time his own mother hugs him and he nearly laughs at the bitter irony of it all because of all times—

He can’t help it. It’s like he’s dirty, inadequate. Hell, it’s something that he’s probably been supressing for years because it’s not right, he’s _dirty,_ he shouldn’t be touching the things he loves or else he’ll contaminate them—hell, he already has.

Annie, his beautiful Annie, she’s going to die, and it’s going to be because of him. Because he got involved, because he didn’t just leave her be, because he was selfish and took the one slice of happiness life offered him.

He hates the hands that touch her, hates that his own hands are dirty with lost lives _(oh what the hell, so are hers, so are all of theirs—)_ , hates that the same hands that hold her also held hundreds of other hands in the capitol. They’re dirty, he’s dirty.

So he takes a deep, shaky breath. Tries to make himself relax. Doesn’t take his hands away from her because they’re in it together now and he is hers and she is his.

He closes his eyes, remembers all those times Gale came back feeling tainted in his own skin—trembling sometimes, practically clawing at his own skin, and Finnick felt helpless, so helpless. Sometimes, he’d stay in the shower until it went cold and Finnick had to forcibly drag him out, and still, he’d barely even let Finnick touch him. There’s self-hatred there that’s heart-breaking but it’s just another thing in the world that Finnick can’t do _enough_ about, however hard he tries, just like he can’t do anything about the fact that Annie’s going to die.

Distantly, he wonders why Gale lets him touch when he flinches from his own mother, and maybe wonders if it’s because he’s just as dirty, dirty, dirty, covered in blood and tears and come and too much guilt, blame and responsibility smeared over his shoulders.

He doesn’t sleep at all that night. Just stays holding Annie safe for as long as he can until her stylist comes and kicks him out in the morning.

Finnick likes her stylist well enough—he treats her like a child, which means he’s gentle, at least.

He strokes her cheek and she squeezes his palm and then he lets himself be escorted out but wanders aimlessly through the corridors. There’s something uneasy brewing in him. He’s scared that in the arena, when Annie’s at stake, the revolution might not be his priority—and then he’ll have even more blood on his hands.

* * *

Say, hypothetically speaking, Annie was right and Gale does love him.

Finnick frowns and yanks at the knot in his hands so hard it violently comes undone and he punches a wall.

“Ow.”

Katniss looks up, stops rearranging pencils from the supplies on the floor. It’s dark in the closet and he can only just make out her dishevelled hair and the dark circles under her eyes. She looks a lot like Gale, just like most people from their district—they share the same pale complexion that tans strong olive, and the straight, dark hair, grey eyes and bold cheekbones. It’s not just that, though—he remembers the first time he saw Katniss on TV and he was struck by her composure, her look of defiance that she shares with Gale.

It seems like a lifetime ago that he was sitting on their couch in the capitol flat, listening to Gale talking about his maybe-girl, the one he could have loved in a different world. It’s surreal, sprawled opposite her now, watching her dead eyes as she mourns the life of another, who she was set up to love and accidentally fell for real along the way.

He distantly remembers Gale crying over the side of his bed, wonders if it was a dream. Hurts too much to be. He’s lost everything—everything except Finnick.

He’s supposed to be his mentor, his _friend._ Someone to lean on.

And then he remembers the wild look in his eyes as he desperately tried saving Annie in that arena, even though she was already _dead_ goddammit, remembers Gale lunging for the beast, crazed, animalistic, and thinks maybe Gale knew. Knew that without Annie, he’d fall apart.

The memory forces a choked sob out of him and he puts his head between his knees, ignoring the look Katniss gives him (not quite pity, she’s just as bad as he is, maybe it’s always just wearied now) and wills the world to stop spinning.

He wonders if he’s going mad, like everyone said Annie was. If he’s finally taken a dive off the deep end, and he’s swimming now, swimming far away.

Knows he hasn’t, not yet. She couldn’t help it. He can, and he’s sitting in a closet with the maybe-mockingjay while they both try escape their own heads. He wonders what Gale’s doing.

“You’ll tear your hands up if you keep pulling that rope so hard,” Katniss says, jerking him back to reality.

“Oh,” he says, idly. She goes back to the pencils, puts them down, curls up. Maybe she’s taking a nap. Probably.

He takes another breath. Say, hypothetically, Gale loves him. Loved him. Whatever. Just like Gale hypothetically loves (loved, could have loved?) Katniss. What would it mean?

Katniss whimpers a little in her sleep, a frown on her forehead, so Finnick jabs her in the ribs before the nightmare can get too bad. She settles, but doesn’t wake up—she’s too tired, they’re all too tired and _done_ with everything—she’s just a kid, for fucks sakes, _Gale’s_ just a kid, so is Annie—

Annie is gone.

Finnick wants to follow her. Briefly entertains the idea of just doing it, revolution be damned, but he knows he can’t, never could have, not even when he was lying in that bed and Gale was saying those ugly things, _nothing, go ahead and die, it will probably be kinder._

Humans are stupid, so stupid, them and their little lives, weighing so heavy but with such a fragile pillar holding them up, making them do what they do—one person, a backbone. Someone to hold little pieces together. Annie.

Then he realises it’s bullshit and it’s only him who was dumb enough to balance the rest of his world on one person’s fragile shoulders. He knows Gale did it all for his family, for his best friend, for Katniss. They’re all gone now. His family burned up, and Katniss is sitting in a closet with Finnick, with only enough space for one other in her head.

And Finnick wonders what’s keeping Gale steady now, and he realises there’s nothing, nobody, and it scares him to the very core, shakes him up and makes dread curl in his stomach because Gale without a purpose is Gale unrestrained and Gale unrestrained means that they’ll easily win the revolution but a lot of people are going to die and Gale might be one of them.

Say, hypothetically, Gales still loves Finnick. That Annie was right and he ever did—

Haymitch finds them and hauls them out of the closet before he can finish his train of thought and he laughs unhindered at the disgruntled look on his face because Haymitch calls them _sweetheart_ and scolds them and actually treats them like children. He thinks maybe Haymitch cares a lot more than he lets on, and wonders if he’s keeping an eye on Gale as well.

* * *

The train carriage sways a little as it turns a corner and Finnick curses when his feet slip off the Gale’s lap. The floor is always uncomfortable but it’s not like they’ve really got another option when the only trains frequenting lines between districts are freights.

The train slows down to unload supplies by District 2 and even though he’s seen it many times before, Gale still lowers his book to look out the window and even though Finnick hasn’t paid any attention to it in years, he crawls across the carriage to look out by Gale’s side.

“Looking at buildings again?” he teases, cheekily elbowing Gale’s ribs. He bats him away absently.

“Come on, you’ve got to appreciate them.”

“They’re ugly.”

“No, they’re practical,” says Gale, giving him the side-eye. “And besides, concrete and steel look damn good together and you can’t change my mind. It’s an imposing combination. Geometric. Bold. Unlike capitol architecture, with the fucking pastel colours and ugly lattices everywhere—gives me a headache. Brutalism is nicer to look at, and tasteful—the style relies on shape and shadow to provide composition.”

“If you say so,” Finnick replies, dubiously, but he looks again and supposes Gale kind of has a point.

The buildings are still ugly, he won’t change his mind about that, but he can sort of see an appeal to them—they radiate power, strength. Solidity.

“They’re left over from the dark days, you know. That style.”

“You could’ve been an architect,” says Finnick, absently, and now that Gale’s pointed it out, he can’t help staring at the buildings with their crude facades and bold edges and thinks they’re raw, almost, but balanced in a way that could be seen as beautiful.

Gale just laughs and turns to face him, half of his face thrown into bold shadow that makes his smile look like it’s been sculpted from marble. “How, pray tell fuck? With what artistic talent?”

“And here I was, thinking you were good at everything except swimming.”

He laughs again, lets his head fall back on the side of the carriage. “Tell you what. Annie can design the buildings, and I’ll work out how to hold it up.”

* * *

Gale doesn’t know what to do. He knows what he wants to do, wants to go to Finnick, hold him maybe, because after everything the thought of Finnick still comforts him. He’s sorry for shouting at Finnick last time, that wasn’t fair. Nothing’s fair anymore and Gale hates that he’s part of that.

And sure, he’s sorry, but he doesn’t think he can apologise, not just yet. He’s still too angry, unfeeling, empty. But he thinks he really wants to ask _are we still good?_ at least.

The walk to the hospital wing is grey, grey, grey as he runs his hand along the smooth walls that at least feel solid and smooth and cold under his fingers. He passes one other person and they nod respectfully. _Soldier._

It’s all clinical, here. Ordered. He can’t decide whether he likes it.

Finnick’s not in the hospital so he makes his way to the meeting he’s supposed to be at instead. He’s not sure what he would have said anyway. _Are we still good?_

But Finnick’s standing in the corner of the room with Katniss and he doesn’t know how to act, but they’re in a meeting, so he ignores the both of them. He’s still in that hospital gown that makes him look washed-out like everything else in this place and he’s looking at Gale—Katniss isn’t; she’s fiddling with her bracelet. _Mentally disoriented._

As he stares at President Coin with utmost focus _(look engaged, Gale, it’s not hard)_ he wonders why he hasn’t got one. A bracelet. He’s got a communicuff instead. It looks ugly too, heavy and imposing.

It should be flimsy, an ugly little _mentally disoriented_ , something to show he doesn’t know what to do—no, that’s not true, he knows he has briefings to attend, training, classes all stamped neatly on the inside of his wrist—but something’s not _right,_ he always feels like he’s on the brink of something, his mind tense and stretched thin, _don’t think—_

It’s like that dam that broke, the one that helped Annie win. Stretched past its breaking point, past its engineering capabilities and about to burst.

Is he going mad? Maybe. Maybe Finnick’s gone mad too, and Katniss. Haymitch is too tired and Plutarch is too cheerful and Gale sort of really wants to put his hands around his neck and squeeze.

Coin is still talking, something about District 3. Finnick’s still staring at him, his eyes burning holes into the back of his head but whenever Gale turns around his gaze isn’t intense, it’s wide and pained and _are we still good?_

How long must Annie’s dam have been straining before it gave? And how did the gamemakers not notice? Maybe it was triggered by an unexpected movement, made unintentionally by the gamemakers or maybe influenced by something out of the arena. Gale can’t remember much of Annie’s games, thinks he’s rubbed them out from his memory. Or maybe it was a building flaw, a hairline crack that went unnoticed by engineers that spread and burst and suddenly nothing was contained.

Gale doesn’t flinch when Plutarch claps him on the shoulder when the meeting ends— _capitol man, capitol scum—_ even if his grin looks painted on and Gale wants to slap it off. He’s used to it. Tune it out. Plutarch plays the war like he played the Games.

Finnick’s still staring at him, wincing on his behalf, looking so fragile, and Gale suddenly doesn’t know whether he wants to hold him forever or walk away. Katniss is gone already; she disappeared halfway through the meeting. There’s no printed ink on her arm.

And then he sees Haymitch, hollow eyes, and he looks wary, like he wants to reach for Gale, and _fuck,_ that means he’s figured out something’s up. Look calm, Gale, it’s not hard, you do this all the time. Did this all the time. What the hell, what’s the difference? Blank face, smile, follow your orders.

Nobody’s watching when he shuts himself up in a closet and it’s only a coincidence that it’s the same one Katniss is already in. No, that’s a lie. It’s not a coincidence at all. It’s the perfect mix of away from the meeting rooms and main spaces and still in plain sight to be unnoticeable. It’s discreet. The right proportions, not big enough to be empty but not small enough to be claustrophobic. Somewhere game would hide, like squirrels or rabbits or injured deer—comforting in the dark.

He doesn’t speak to her, she doesn’t speak to him. They’re both hurting but neither of them reaches out and he _should_ , maybe, because she looks so lost, tired, but at the end of the day, he’s lost and tired too and she’s not the one whose family burned to a crisp.

She’s hurting too, though, over Peeta. Remembers distantly when seeing them together made his skin prickle. Wonders how they got to this stage—Katniss and Gale no longer in the woods, no longer talking; Katniss and Peeta no longer holding hands and giggling for cameras; Katniss empty without the blonde boy who was supposed to be an act. It doesn’t bother him as much as it should. It just is.

He misses Finnick more than he wants to talk about because that’s just another thing that Gale keeps under tight lines in his mind these days. Thoughts of Finnick bring pain because he _wants_ but hates that he does, pain because Finnick left him, even if it wasn’t his fault.

If only—if only what? Gale lets out a soft breath through his nose and leans against the wall. There’s piping on it and it digs into his back but he doesn’t notice, not really.

If only he and Finnick were _still good._ Maybe it would change things, maybe not. Maybe Finnick’s back but not really, like Annie, but Gale doesn’t think that will make a difference. He’ll still be Finnick and Gale will still love him. Wonders if it would be easier if Finnick loved him back, knows it doesn’t matter, won’t make a difference. But it’s fun, imagining. It’s distracting.

Haymitch finds them eventually; he always does. He’s the only one who does. Haymitch, Katniss, Gale—three Seam kids who used to have fire. They’re more similar than Gale likes to think.

“You alright, kid?” he asks as he chases the both of them out and shepherds them towards the canteen, forcing them to eat.

Nobody asks Katniss. Everybody knows Katniss isn’t alright.

“You alright?” he asks again—he knows not to touch him but Gale can’t help leaning away from him anyway. He doesn’t smell like stale sweat and liquor anymore and it’s wrong—hell, he smells like Alma Coin, like Plutarch, like Madge and like everybody else in this damned place.

“Thriving,” says Gale, deadpan. “Like a fish in water.”

And he knows he looks as impassive as ever on the outside, he’s had practice after all, but he can’t help the slightly hysterical laugh that bubbles up inside his head and goes on and on and on. It’s funny. Maybe fish think like this, with one thought at a time. Incoherent. Bouncing.

Gale briefly wonders what it would be like to be a fish. Nothing but swimming, swimming, swimming, then—dead. Like Clavicle.

He can’t help it, nearly laughs again, and maybe he’s really not as impassive as he thinks because Katniss is looking at him weird.

“Where are you going kid? Dinner’s this way.”

Gale shrugs. “I’m not hungry.”

He leaves Haymitch and Katniss, wanders back to his room. Runs a hand over cold, grey, smooth walls and counts exactly how many footsteps it takes from Classroom 4B up until his room, exchanges a nod, _soldier,_ that’s 203 steps.

Goes into his room, into the bathroom. Washes his face. Looks in the grimy mirror—and suddenly, he gets it. He was wrong.

He doesn’t look impassive. He looks terrifying.

There’s a person there in the mirror who looks like Gale but wears a glare, something cold and bloodless and unfeeling and with so much _hate._ He runs a curious finger over his reflection, watches as the water from his hands distorts the straight lines of his face and makes that ugly, ugly scowl twist and melt.

This time he doesn’t bother contain the bitter laugh that spills from his lips because that in the mirror? That’s exactly what a monster looks like and it’s perfect, perfect for a revolution.

He’s going to watch the capitol burn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my god that was depressing  
> it gets better   
> sort of  
> i promise


	3. Hang the Moon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy christmas!! (it's close enough)   
> enjoy the final chapter, ending on a slightly more hopeful note.

It’s a strong face, more familiar than his own reflection, but so different. It’s odd, to Gale. Like a dream or a mirage.

And he looks out of place in the drab grey uniform they all wear these days, just like they all do, every Seam kid underground too early.

All these long weeks, months, even, and Gale never thought to check if Thom was still alive. Almost didn’t want to. He was blocked out of his mind, not intentionally—maybe intentionally. (Maybe it’s his subconscious begging _not another one, not another one gone because of me.)_

But he’s there, large as life, face mild as ever and with the same shine in his eyes as he stands on the other side of the canteen. And Gale can’t stop _staring_ because that’s his best friend forever, they swore on it, and he’s alive and, and—

And it’s like looking through a sheet of glass into what it was _before,_ something that Gale’s been avoiding because it makes him feel like he’s swimming in his own head. Thom’s still got the same gently rugged features and wide cheekbones, still stands a foot taller than everyone else, still has wide lips and a soft smile. And everything is twisted because Gale still wants, but doesn’t know what, because the idea of talking to him makes him feel sick, every bone in his body rejecting what’s in front of him because that’s _Thom,_ that’s District 12 Thom who should be lying in the Meadow with him, smoking behind the slag heaps, drinking mint tea like a fiend. Seeing him with his broad fingers wrapped around a plastic tray and a grey uniform tight around the shoulders and grey people everywhere around him sends Gale’s world spinning.

He’s a half-person in the wrong world and it sticks a wrench into Gale’s world view of what should be and isn’t. Glimpses of Gale’s half-life, what _used to be_ colliding disjointed with what _is,_ it’s like Prim, little Prim, shouldering a woman’s job and a woman’s tears, while Katniss walks through corridors looking for a hand to hold that isn’t there. He wonders what it means that the hollow Katniss-shell doesn’t bother him anymore; thinks it’s because she exists as a _before_ and an _after_ as well, and he wonders if it’s maybe Peeta’s fault.

But that’s Thom in front of him now, and Thom doesn’t belong.

The moment lasts barely half a second. Gale watches Thom’s older brother, Rowan, whack him with his empty tray, then they’re both hurrying out (they’re probably late somewhere, on an earlier lunch schedule; that’s probably why Gale hasn’t seen him before now), Thom with a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes.

“Move, brainless,” hisses Johanna, digging into his back with a tray. She’s just been recovered from the capitol but it doesn’t stop her from being any less of a bitch.

Gale appreciates it. He startles and glares at her, but it’s half-hearted. She was never scared of him, like most people seem to be these days. It’s kind of nice.

He suspects it’s because she’s just as bad as he is.

* * *

“I thought you loved that boy,” says Mags, shrewdly.

“I do,” says Finnick. “I love him.”

And he’s never said that out loud before so he takes a moment to sample them on his tongue. They sound familiar already. He wonders how Mags knew, wonders if it’s that obvious, wonders how long he’s known himself. The words taste sweet on his tongue, raw, something simple and fresh like a lungful of early morning spring air when there’s dew on the grass and cold fog in the distance and spikes of sunlight filtering through it.

“He’s dangerous,” says Mags. “Look at him.”

Finnick frowns, and looks, and doesn’t see anything. “That’s not him,” he replies automatically.

Mags raises a withering eyebrow and they both look again—Gale’s face is masked with his trademark scowl as usual, in a pout that would have been beautiful if it wasn’t downright intimidating. Untouchable.

He’s perfectly still as he surveys Boggs and Fulvia drawing something on a map, some sort of plan or blueprint, whatever. Finnick doesn’t fucking know.

“Who is he then?” asks Mags.

Finnick tugs at the sleeve of his stupid hospital-issued gown. Bites his lower lip. “He likes running,” he begins, slowly. “But only in the mornings. He likes knowing how things work. He likes walking over moss in the woods and he likes blackberries but only if they’re straight from a bush, when they’re fresh and sour. He says the capitol-grown ones are too big and too sweet. And he never bothered look at the moon but I said it was a bit like him and he laughed, so I promised I’d take him to the ocean so we could watch it together. We never did.”

He takes a breath and Mags is looking at him pityingly, her old face looking even older as it wrinkles into something sad.

“That’s not him,” insists Finnick, again, trying in vain not to let the words fall flat even in his own ears.

“Maybe it is now.”

And Finnick’s chest clenches painfully again, because it can’t be. Maybe this is what Annie meant when she said _get him out of there._ Get him out of where? The Games, maybe? They’ve both been through two. Or maybe their whole lives are just one giant game, maybe there’s no end, no winner.

Because he knows sure as hell that this Gale, who builds traps, directs soldiers, clenches his jaw but says nothing when Plutarch leers and claps a meaty hand on his shoulder—that’s not Gale. Might have been, never was. Gale doesn’t walk anywhere alone. Gale doesn’t fall apart in the nights and Finnick doesn’t sit outside his door and hear just to feel something because he’s oh so desperately missing touch—

But he does, they both do, and Finnick hates that Mags is right.

“I’m gonna tell him.”

“That you love him?”

Finnick frowns, doesn’t know if he’s making sense, but continues anyway. “I’m gonna get him out.”

When Mags casts another long look at him, it’s not any less weary, but she looks like she understands. Mags probably understands everything. At least, that’s what Finnick thought when he was a kid who’d just won (but what was he really winning?) and it’s what he’s trying to convince himself now.

“Why you?” she asks.

“Because,” he says. “Because nobody else is.”

Not even Katniss, but she’s lost. Not even Haymitch, even if he tries. And he’s not really got anyone else. _And I might understand, even if it’s a little bit._

“I left him, Mags. But I promised Annie I’d get him out.”

She sighs again and Finnick thinks Mags looks translucent, like maybe she’ll dissolve. 

“You’re not doing this for Annie, are you?” she asks.

“No. I’m doing it for him.”

* * *

Johanna is a god-awful influence even with her shaved head and thin wrists and dark, baleful eyes. She looks younger and human and infinitely more fragile and she shudders when she drinks water and sometimes her breath rattles but she scowls defiant as usual and laughs in Coin’s face and still walks around like nothing can touch her and Gale’s kind of beginning to think she’s indestructible out of sheer force of will.

Katniss says she isn’t, but Gale doesn’t want to believe it. If Johanna wants him to think she’s indestructible then he will. She’s earned it.

And now he’s sitting in an empty classroom with her while they’re supposed to be in some stupid lecture—something about contributing to a sustainable working environment or some shit; Gale doesn’t know. Haymitch found them and didn’t even bother complain, which was just as well. He looks too tired to complain anyway, and drawn out without a bottle to mute everything around him, so he joined them. It’s odd company but Gale doesn’t mind.

He suspects Haymitch misses Effie bossing him around. Being a single parent to a handful of fuck-up tributes doesn’t seem to be doing him a world of good, what when neither Gale nor Katniss speak much anymore, Johanna’s even more unruly than she ever was and Finnick’s still drifting. Gale thinks it might be tiring, maybe, stepping into Effie’s shoes as well as trying to fulfil his own.

He didn’t think he’d ever miss Effie Trinket, but everything is inverted black and white these days. He leans back and huffs a laugh imagining Haymitch’s fretting face, when he’s trying to pretend he doesn’t care, and wonders what the hell they’d all be doing without him. Once a mentor always a mentor. He knows Haymitch is walking on just as much of a knife edge as they all are.

It’s complete coincidence that Thom spots him through the window and comes in, or maybe it isn’t. Thom was always the better friend. Maybe he came looking. Probably. Possibly. Gale can’t imagine why he’s worth the effort.

Thom doesn’t reach out and hug him, doesn’t try ask how he’s doing, doesn’t even say _man, I’m glad you’re alive_ like he did after Gale won (survived) the Games, because clearly, Gale barely is. He knows Gale’s family are dead, can’t not. Gale wonders if he feels guilty, hopes he does, then feels like shit and hopes he doesn’t, feels empty when he thinks of his mum and siblings, _gone,_ stops thinking. Did he watch them burn alive?

He leans back and just breathes, barely notices Johanna propping her feet up on a chair and starting a conversation with Thom. He’s one of the few people who doesn’t look scared of Johanna and Gale almost smiles—because of course Thom wouldn’t be. His voice is just as easy as it ever was and Johanna’s actually grinning, cat-like, and it kind of looks genuine and if he squints, he can pretend everything’s fine.

Someone says something to him, might be Haymitch grouching again. He doesn’t notice, just stares and stares and stares because _Thom’s_ here, with his grey eyes that crinkle and sparkle way more than Gale’s ever did. They used to pretend they were twins when they were kids, and it worked for the most part, until Thom grew about 4 inches and left Gale in the dust. They always looked kind of similar, acted like one.

Hell, they even lost their fathers in the same explosion and that, really, that was it, not the height or the girls or whatever. The dividing line, if he ever had to pinpoint it, when they became Gale and Thom and not _GaleandThom_ , even if the scar was still cut deep into Gale’s palm, back then. Thom had four older brothers already working in the mines to support him. Gale turned to the forest.

“Hey, brainless,” Johanna’s moved very close and Gale does his best not to wince. “Earth to Gale.”

“What?”

“You’ve been staring at Thom’s eyelashes for the past 10 minutes, and I know he’s eye candy, but if you want to stake claims, please call it now.”

“Ha.” Gale inches away from her and closes his eyes.

“Jesus fucking Christ what’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing, fuck.”

She leans in again and Gale forces himself not to move. “Thom, why is this kid your best friend if he never even speaks to you?”

He chooses not to answer.

Then, she’s ignoring his glare and reaching out, nudges his foot. Gale jerks away, distracted, while she snorts with something that might be bitter humour, might be distain. Probably both.

Haymitch looks up warily from his slumped position but Johanna doesn’t care, she never cares. She’s not got much left to care about. Gale thinks that if she did, she wouldn’t be able to cope. But he did think she might understand even a little bit—he didn’t think he’d have to try, with Johanna.

But she shuffles closer and there’s something vindictive on her face that he can’t place, something frustrated. Her barely-there hair falls in little tufts over her eyes as she bumps his shoulder playfully, testing the waters, doesn’t get it when Gale says “Don’t,” and moves away again.

It’s not Johanna; it’s not normally Johanna. But he can’t be fucked to be angry so when she grins again and her hand starts creeping towards him, teasing, he stands up and makes to leave.

“Kid—” Haymitch begins, but one of Johanna’s ugly, bitter laughs cuts across him.

“Come on Gale, where’s your spirit?” she taunts. “Where’s that Gale from the Games?”

Gale clenches his fists. One slow breath in, let it out. “He doesn’t exist. Never did.”

“Shame, really.” She’s hopped off the table now and Haymitch is still eying her warily and there’s a bright spark of something cruel around the sarcastic curl of her lips. “Considering we’re still in an arena. You’re a mess, brainless. Lost the plot like Annie, huh? Like the way Finnick’s going?”

“Christ, shut the _fuck_ up,” and Gale’s getting mad, feels any semblance of control slipping, because Johanna’s words bring up images of a bronze-haired wraith in Finnick’s skin and a starched white hospital gown. “Shut up, goddammit.”

And fuck if she’s indestructible, she’s not, nobody is. He wonders what her screams sounded like in a capitol torture chamber, wonders how long she can carry on holding up this indestructible shell around her—longer than Gale, maybe? Unlikely. Nothing’s likely.

“Suck it up brainless—”

Because that’s Johanna’s desperation leaking through, her way of trying not to fall apart like the rest of them are, maybe she has already but she’s better at keeping it contained. Wonders if her thoughts are bouncing around and screaming too. Katniss says she can’t sleep, most nights—maybe it’s the drug withdrawal, the unfamiliar environment, the walking nightmares. Whatever.

And she’s still talking.

“Because that’s just what it is, isn’t it Gale? Did the capitol life get to you?” she taunts, grinning, flashing her teeth. “They leech everything out of you? Or are you waiting for someone to tell you what to do next—you know, I used to feel sorry for you, but I’m beginning to think you kinda enjoy being somebody’s whore or at least don’t know how to live without it—”

“Johanna—” Haymitch warns, and Gale’s just there trying to breathe, block her voice out, _shut up shut up shut up—_

“Once the Capitol’s lapdog, and what’s changed? Now you’re Coin’s. I see you hanging off her every word, you—”

And Haymitch cuts in again, louder— “Johanna—”

She just laughs bitterly and he thinks it’s contempt in her eyes and _fuck_ he deserves it but he can’t, not anymore—

Then some invisible tether’s snapped around him and he’s lunging for her throat _shut up shut up,_ squeezing, her blunt nails scrabbling at his forearms and leaving little streaks of red on his porcelain-white skin. And for the first time, he sees genuine fear in her eyes. And likes it. There’s something satisfying crawling up under his skin and he wants blood.

But his arms are wrenched harshly away and locked against his body and Gale’s gone mad, doesn’t think he’s shouting but he’s definitely writhing as Johanna staggers away, coughing and glaring, red lines around her throat. He struggles, but Thom’s always been bigger than him (Thom, of course it’s Thom holding him, Thom’s arms, Thom’s voice whispering soothing nothings in his ear) and Johanna’s out the door in seconds, with a final _bang_.

Gale sags in Thom’s arms, doesn’t know what to think. He’s still seething but it’s hopeless.

“Gale, sweetheart,” Haymitch is pinching the bridge of his nose, looking like he’s torn between giving him a dressing-down, like one of Gale’s old school teachers, and placating him. “It’s Johanna. You know what she’s like. She’s frustrated. She didn’t mean it, especially now that Finnick’s—”

_Gone off the deep end like Annie. Without her. Maybe I have too._

Guilt hits him like a punch to the gut and he almost stumbles over as he staggers away from Thom. He knows. Of course he knows, but knowing doesn’t make anything less fucked and he’s just fucking put hands on Johanna and now she’s scared of him too and he just wants to sink and drown.

“Shut up,” he says again, but this time his voice seems small and dry. Haymitch rolls his eyes and mutters something under his breath but casts a last long glance behind him before he leaves as well.

And then there’s just Gale and the rushing white noise in his head, and he’s going to cry, goddammit, and Thom—

And Thom’s still there, stretching out his fingertips so they’re close to Gale’s but not touching. Giving him the choice.

He gulps and looks at the outstretched hand, knowing that this used to be his best friend. Maybe he still is.

He wants comfort, hell, he craves it. And it’s Thom for fuck’s sake; it’s Thom and he’s alive. So Gale stretches out a shaky hand and grasps Thom’s fingers, feeling them grip back tightly. He traces the skin on his palm, over the ridge of the scar there, faded after all these years. He knows Thom can feel his own, knows he can feel it’s smooth.

Gale moves even closer so he’s almost under his chin, face dipping down to his shoulders. They’re as broad as they ever were, still larger than life, and Gale hides there taking deep, shuddering breaths. He can feel Thom’s warmth radiating off him and he’s _alive,_ not behind a curtain, and Gale knows he should be clinging to him but something’s not right.

He used to feel safe in those arms but now he’s getting that dirty feeling again, the one that feels like there’s things crawling up under his capitol-smooth skin, creeping, skittering, screaming at him _don’t touch, that’s not yours._

And he doesn’t know what to do apart from breathe because he wants to fall down in Thom’s arms and just stay for a little bit—hell, this time over two years ago, _before,_ he would have done anything to grab him by the belt loops and pull them flush together, to lean up and grab his bottom lip with his teeth. But he did as friends do and dutifully watched him kissing another pair of lips, ached inside but was happy as long as Thom was smiling.

He’s spiralling again as he stands there, the strange feeling of disconnect wiping his mind blank again. Gale really doesn’t know how long he can hold on anymore because everything’s _wrong_ —they don’t fit together anymore. It’s not Thom, not really, just like he isn’t Gale, not really.

He doesn’t even smell right anymore. He should be comforting but he smells just like Haymitch, stale, just like everyone else in this damned place—there’s no familiar scent of mint or grass or even his boss’ tobacco. There’s nothing even remotely _Thom_. Just washed out.

Gale’s other hand creeps up to grip the front of Thom’s shirt and he just holds it, trying to ground himself, trying to convince himself that it’s really Thom in front of him, Thom, who used to steal cigarettes and smoke them with Gale, who used to share his lunch when food was scarce, who could still look him in the eye after watching him slaughter children on TV. Family, by everything but blood—by blood, even. Might as well have been.

And Gale never truly knew how much he loved the boy standing in front of him until he realised that he’s just another thing that he let the capitol wrestle from his fingers—because he can’t do it anymore so he adds it to the long list of things he’s failed at, but knows that even if Thom might never understand, he’ll accept it. He won’t think badly of Gale.

They promised, after all. _Best friends until we die._ Charming. Innocent. Two little fucking idiots with matching scars made with a blood pact and a stolen pocketknife.

It hurts that Gale can’t accept what he’s being given, let alone offer part of him in return _(there’s nothing left to give)._

“I’m sorry,” he manages to choke out. Thom doesn’t say anything, just strokes comforting circles on his back.

“I’m sorry,” he repeats.

“You don’t have to be,” says Thom, quietly.

But Gale does, he feels too much. Heavy. A lot of things are his fault, and he’s sorry for it all.

So he straightens himself up and gently lets go, holding Thom’s heavy gaze for as long as he can. They’re dull now, missing their sparkle, and Gale’s sorry already, misses it already. Thinks maybe that’s his fault too.

His thumb sweeps a final stroke over his palm and he almost says _I love you,_ but it’s too late, just like a lot of things.

“Thank you,” he says instead, and feels empty already. He’s pretty sure Thom will figure out what for.

Then he’s turned his back, walks away quickly, everything’s spinning, grey tiles and 234 steps this time, _soldier,_ don’t think—

He feels disgusting, like there are a hundred hands crawling all over his skin and he hates himself for it. For touching something beautiful and _not his,_ not anymore.

Cold water on his face again, and it shocks him, feels good, but he runs a hand down the mirror again and there’s not a monster there anymore. He sees Thom’s eyes, bleary and worn down, grey, without their twist of blue. Not right.

He wishes Finnick were here.

He stays by the sink, watching clear water run over his pale knuckles, cleaning away the blood, the powders and pills, all the grimy fingerprints, _Prim getting reaped in the summer_ —his fault he keeps fucking up.

* * *

Coin lets them go hunting, and it’s peaceful. Gale’s supposed to be there to ‘keep an eye on Katniss’, their mockingjay, and he nearly laughs out loud because he’s in no way, shape or form up for ‘keeping an eye on’ the lost girl he used to know. But that’s fine. It’s just hunting, even if she’s got a tracker bracelet wrapped around her ankle.

So Gale lets himself have the moment and it’s nice to know that despite everything, they understand each other. They might not see eye to eye anymore, they might have different people on their minds, but they understand each other and that’s enough.

The woods are quiet and familiar, the moss just as soft under his feet as he remembers. There’s a little bit of sunlight flittering through the canopy of trees above them, and Gale just watches and follows Katniss with a familiar hunter’s tread as she shoots down a few birds and a stray rabbit.

In the end, she stops too and they sit down on a rocky outcrop that looks kind of like their old spot in the woods but not so similar that Gale’s world is thrown sideways again. She’s next to him like before, not touching but close enough to feel the warmth radiating from her side as he fiddles with the long grass around them, lets the familiar motion of his fingers weaving it in and out take over his mind.

She even smiles when he offers her the roughly thrown-together grass crown but doesn’t put it on, just starts picking it apart and they both watch it dissolve back into single green strands that fall over her lap. It’s alright. They sit in silence and it’s comfortable.

Their movements are familiar, even if the people sitting next to each of them aren’t.

She thinks he hates the capitol. She’s right.

She thinks he’s cold, heartless. She might be right.

And she thinks he likes what he does, and she’s not. She’s not right.

They leave after a while, and she tosses a blackberry at him and he stumbles over himself trying to catch it, the movement rusty, but it explodes in his mouth and it’s tart and sour and perfect and he feels his lips curl upwards into a smile.

* * *

Gale likes being in the weapons department with Beetee, as long as he zones out enough to ignore what they’re actually using the things they build for. It’s easy, down here, when there’s work to do that distracts his rushing mind.

So he pushes Beetee’s wheelchair around and lets his rhythmic voice tune things out and finds he actually feels a spark of something that might be excitement when Beetee pulls out a new design or shows him an engine up close for the first time.

He notices Mags looking at him funny and absently wonders if maybe she was remembering what he did to try and save Annie, and the thought makes him frown. She tried volunteering for Annie in the reapings, he remembers, even if she wasn’t allowed. Just one more person he’s let down, then. One more person he’s failed. The line is kind of long, one more person doesn’t make much of a difference anymore.

Gale only notices he’s zoned out when a nudge from Beetee draws him back to his work. It’s an interesting design, unlike the usual standard model of aircraft in District 13—it’s more compact, but heavier, and could be used for trade or transport as well. Honestly, Gale prefers it to the sleek District 13 things, which are fragile and breakable like the people inside it don’t matter, and built for one purpose—destruction.

Gale doesn’t realise he’s stilled again, distracted, until someone else steps up next to him. He flinches automatically, startled, but it’s just Finnick. Finnick, twisting that familiar piece of rope in his hands but Finnick, without that hideous hospital gown. He looks more alive already.

“Oh,” says Gale, dumbly.

“Hey,” says Finnick.

He’s nervous, sure. Gale can tell. But he’s actually here, he’s actually come back, and he’s trying. For Gale, maybe, because Gale knows that Finnick’s way past trying for the sake of the world.

So Gale mumbles, “Hey,” back, and wonders how Finnick possibly still smells like the sea. Then, he wonders if maybe he doesn’t actually, and maybe he’s imagining it because that’s just how he imagines Finnick should smell all the time.

He tenses when Finnick moves closer, his skin brushing the tiny hairs on his arm. But it’s Finnick, it’s just Finnick, so Gale takes a breath and finds it’s not hard to unclench his knuckles and watch his forearms relax as careful hands reach over to help him with the screwdriver. He hadn’t noticed the slight tremble in his fingers.

_I missed you,_ he wants to say, but keeps his mouth closed because Mags is staring at them curiously and he’s pretty sure Finnick knows anyway. _I love you,_ he wants to say, but it’s stupid and they’re in a war and he’s pretty sure Finnick knows anyway.

So he lets himself smile and says, “I’m glad you’re alive, man,” and Finnick grins, a sketch of what it used to be, but at least it’s there.

* * *

“You’re not going? Back on your visit to your District?” Finnick looks up from his colouring book, giving up on making the fucking crayons stay in the lines. He doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing or why, but what the hell. It passes time.

“Nah,” Gale shrugs, the picture of carefully feigned nonchalance. “I couldn’t face it. Not this time.”

He doesn’t elaborate and Finnick doesn’t ask.

“Come back with me.” The words tumble out of Finnick’s mouth before he can think about them. “Come to District 4. I’ll teach you how to swim, and how to fish.”

“What—”

“It’s alright, man. Annie will like you. It will be fun.”

To his surprise, Gale agrees so they take a train that evening and they both help Annie haul in catch and gut a fish, and she tries to teach him how to mend a sail, and she’s so kind and patient and so’s Gale.

They speak quietly together sometimes, and Finnick realises how much he doesn’t mind it even when he’s not in the conversation. He likes it, actually; it’s something he wishes he could do forever—even though, of course, Gale’s considerate and tries to keep out of the way, says he doesn’t want to intrude on Finnick and Annie’s precious moments alone.

But Finnick’s thought about it and he’s realised that he doesn’t mind sharing Annie. He thought he’d always be clinging to the moments with her like they’re a set of fragile lifelines stringing him together, but Gale in the picture just _works_. It’s not awkward, it’s really kind of nice, and he can’t bring it in himself to feel anything but carefree when Annie’s laughing harder than she has in ages.

“Why?” he asks her one day, when Gale’s off on a run at the crack of dawn like the heathen he is.

“Because you’re happy, Finnick,” she replies before she kisses him and, well. He can’t really argue with that.

So Finnick and Annie try teaching him how to swim later that day, brushing off Gale’s concerns about imposing and third wheeling until they all forget them when they’re alone in the sea, turquoise everywhere, the water so clear he can see the bottom of the bay and the shoals of silvery fish spinning meters below them.

When Gale tans, he’s actually got an olive complexion that flatters his toned figure, dark hair and brooding features and Finnick can’t help staring a little. It’s fine, though, because he’s pretty sure Gale’s staring back and Annie’s staring at the both of them.

It makes him think, sometimes. That if she hadn’t died, he could’ve—they could’ve—

The thought makes his heart hurt and Gale gulps and looks away and the disjointed pieces get stuck in his throat and fade, which is good because it’s possibly everything that Finnick could have ever wanted in his life, and it’s impossible now.

So he lets his mind drift again, thinks of Gale tanning olive and Annie’s perpetually sunburnt nose, thinks about standing on deck at sea with Gale and Annie next to him, Annie holding Gale’s hand and telling him to focus on a spot in the distance while he grumbles about bloody boats moving up and down. Annie laughs and maybe Finnick should feel jealous but he never does. The sea air is clean and salty and fresh and makes him think that he could just let go of his grip on the railing and be carried away with it, into the miles of blue, blue sky, over miles of blue, blue ocean.

“What’s over the sea, Finnick?” Gale asks, feet hanging over the side of the dock. Annie’s boat is parked neatly next to them and for once, the pier doesn’t have the smell of old fish and seaweed lingering around it.

“I don’t know,” he replies, and it’s the honest truth because he’s thought about it every day for his whole life, but still hasn’t got the faintest idea. “Maybe there’s more land. Do you think the ocean just ends?”

“No. Of course not. There’s gotta be more land out there somewhere. I just wonder if it’s all ruins, like the capitol says it is, or if there are other civilisations. Places without all this.”

“Huh.” _Places without the Games_ goes implied.

“Well,” says Annie, staring off into the distance, squinting like she can make out landmasses looming in the horizon. “If there are, I’ll find them. One day, I’m gonna take my boat and just sail straight until I find it.”

* * *

In his defence, he’s not thinking clearly when he does it. He’s not thinking clearly these days, hasn’t been in a while.

“Fuck, Gale, talk to me please,” he says, anguished, taking in the way his furrowed eyebrows melt into something like shock. Like he’s surprised Finnick would actually come back. “Stop. I can’t stand it.”

Now he’s glaring again, and Finnick flinches because that’s what Gale looks like all the time now. Cold. Unfeeling. Distant. Coin’s favourite because of it.

But Finnick’s seen him crack a few times, once when he snarled at Octavia, part of Katniss’ prep team, when she brushed past the wrong way, then stalking away when Katniss tried fighting him about it. Finnick doesn’t miss the tremor in his hands when he sits on Coin’s right-hand side in weapons briefings, staring, stony-jawed—Finnick technically isn’t supposed to be there, but nobody notices him much anymore. He wishes he wasn’t there. The trap is one of Gale’s, elegantly designed, subtle and brutal and made with cold rage and fire.

“Can’t stand what?” asks Gale, stiffly. His jaw twitches as he looks everywhere but Finnick, his glare hardening.

“You. This.”

And maybe Finnick shouldn’t have come in unannounced, said it so abruptly, but again. He’s not been thinking straight these days. He doesn’t know what to say now that he’s come, but at least he’s mostly convinced that he looks pathetic enough that Gale won’t bother kick him out again—it’s like Katniss said. It’s hard to stay mad at someone who cries so much.

So he just stares imploringly at his old flatmate and friend and hopes he can see what he’s trying to say without actually saying it— _I’m sorry, I miss you, come back to me. Don’t leave me hanging. I swear, I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean to leave you alone in this world but I’m back now, if you want me to be, and I’m not going anywhere again._

Gale looks at him, impassive as always, hollow and emotionless as he was when he leaned against Finnick, drugged up and unseeing under fluorescent lights, touching because that’s what he had to do to survive and it makes something crumple in Finnick. He’s paler than he’s ever seen him, product of being cooped underground, his skin ice-white and wintery, an unbreakable sculpture, wiped of blemishes by the capitol but stained with the blood of others, tainted with stranger’s hands whispering rough nothings in the dark and tears for a family he couldn’t save.

“I’m sorry,” Finnick chokes out, even though the words mean less every time he says it, every time he has to say it for every time he fucks up.

“You left me.” It’s a whisper but at least it’s there. It’s rough but at least he’s not scowling anymore.

“I couldn’t help it.”

“I know.”

Finnick reaches out, palms splayed up in silent offering. He lets Gale touch, he lets him ghost his fingertips over Finnick’s, lets him run those same hands over his palm and up his forearm, over the veins and the tendons and muscle and lets him tug at that ghastly white hospital gown until it rips and pools at his feet.

There’s a long moment where he just looks, and then the hands come back, tentatively, like he’s confirming Finnick’s there, he’s really come back and he’s not about to dissolve like morning mist. It’s heartbreakingly gentle, wondering, as those capable hands dance over his bare collarbones, down his arms again. He steps closer and his breath coasts over Finnick’s cheek, warm, alive.

Finnick’s breath hitches and for a fleeting second, he thinks that Gale might actually kiss him, but he just tentatively wraps his arms around him and Finnick clings to him back because for the first time in months he feels secure.

And he doesn’t feel dirty or disgusting or so, so guilty and maybe, perhaps, Gale doesn’t feel like that either. At least, not together they don’t.

* * *

Maybe that’s why Finnick is the way he is, and maybe that’s why he coped so well until he couldn’t, and maybe that’s why Gale cares about him a bit too much.

He just is. He’s fluid as the ocean, unchangeable, untouchable. He hates it but moves with the tide because he has to, still never lets go of his anchor rope. He smiles when they tell him to, all white teeth and gold lines, because what’s it to him, in the end? There are people and there is Finnick and they slot together like puzzles pieces cut from the same factory but printed in different places.

He exists to please people and he doesn’t hate it, not like Gale does. He just hates what he has to do for it, what he has done for it, what he’s done to himself.

“It’s okay,” Gale tells him.

“I know,” says Finnick, and it all simply is.

* * *

Gale laughs, and it doesn’t sound so out of place in District 13 anymore, not when it’s clear and genuine. He’s just told Finnick that he’s ugly in the hospital gown, looked at him with a deadpan face and told him that white really isn’t his colour in a stupid capitol accent—it’s a joke but Finnick thinks that there might be some undercurrent of truth, something about the hospital gown that sets Gale on edge. Finnick understands.

So he throws it off with an exaggerated grin and offers to walk Gale to his next class because _technically_ the bracelet on his wrist still says that he’s mentally disorientated and therefore allowed to do whatever the fuck he wants.

They draw no shortage of incredulous stares as Finnick waltzes through the corridors in his underwear and into Gale’s class, and Finnick can see him giving him the side-eye, the beginnings of a laugh dancing around the curve of his lip and, well. It’s worth it to go everywhere half-naked if it makes Gale laugh like that, and it makes Finnick dimly wonder if that makes him a whore. He’s not sure he cares.

Mags gives him a look that’s half-exasperated and half-amused when he strolls in, and Beetee pinches the bridge of his nose and orders him to go and find some pants, but Finnick can tell he’s trying not to laugh.

He feels light when he leaves, not even noticing the curious stares and grey walls, too preoccupied with the fresh memory of Gale, Gale straight-backed in his uniform, Gale, with an easiness in his shoulders and a sparkle in his eyes. It’s one tiny good moment in the shithole they’re in, but it’s worth something and that’s enough.

Gale’s invested in something when Finnick gets back, brows furrowed and nose scrunched up a little, like it does when he’s working out one of those impossible-looking maths problems for fun. Finnick thinks it’s cute.

He’s completely concentrated on his work, but not with the intense, cold-blooded look he gets sometimes. Finnick’s expecting it when he jerks back instinctively, but his eyes are wide and face open, like he’s kind of surprised that Finnick’s actually come back. But he smiles a little, hesitantly, before Finnick can start feeling guilty again and, hell. That’s enough to make Finnick’s heart soar.

For the first time, Finnick lets himself think of a new _after—_ they’ll make it through the war.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading and for all your comments! I loved reading them all 
> 
> this particular work had a really scattered sense to it and i really enjoyed writing it this way, hope you enjoyed it. there's a third instalment in the works (because i'm in too deep not to finish now) so look out for that one, but don't expect anything for another few months because unfortunately school exists. it's slightly less disjointed but written in the same style, and is a bit more focussed on the revolution, not over 10,000 words of rambling in a fragmented mental state. 
> 
> as usual, leave kudos and comments and constructive criticism is always appreciated. 
> 
> happy christmas, and happy holidays if you don't celebrate it and stay safe as always   
> Jx

**Author's Note:**

> second chapter coming when i get around to writing it (probably by Christmas but no promises) 
> 
> and i'm sorry i love annie idk what was going through my head when i wrote this 
> 
> pls leave feedback idk if my writing style makes sense. imo it's even more disjointed than part 1 and idk if you can actually follow what's going on. i missed some major plot points because they're described in the book and i can't be bothered to write them and i'm just hoping people remember lmao


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